Druid''s Sword

  Then, after the Great Marriage, Noah had suddenly felt it…but could do no more. She could not discover it, and Jack suspected that neither could she sense the shadow as strongly as he and Grace. Why? Why? What significance the Great Marriage? Why had the shadow opened up to Noah after that, if only fractionally?

  Jack drove slowly towards the Savoy through the darkened city, the questions still tumbling about his mind, and still no closer to answering any of them than he had been over the past few weeks.

  He needed to speak to Grace. Somehow, she was the key to all of this.

  “Damn it,” he muttered, pulling up outside the hotel, “why is she always so cursed elusive?”

  He ran lightly up the steps to the residents’ private entrance of the Savoy.

  Robert Stacey was standing a few feet inside the foyer, hands folded before him, demeanour calm, eyes steady, looking for all the world as if he had been waiting for Jack.

  “You’ll not find her at home tonight, sir,” Stacey said as Jack came through the door.

  “I’m not looking for Noah,” said Jack, walking past the Sidlesaghe with a nod.

  “I know,” said Stacey.

  Jack stopped halfway to the lifts, turning to look back at the Sidlesaghe. “You know?”

  Stacey gave a small shrug.

  Jack bit down his annoyance. “Where is she, Stacey?”

  “You’ll find Grace at the parish hall of St Margaret’s Westminster. There’s a dance there tonight. Lots of young things attending. She wanted to go. She said she didn’t want to be frightened, that she didn’t want to let them scare her.”

  Jack looked at Stacey carefully, trying to sort through the implications of the Sidlesaghe’s extraordinary little speech. What was Grace doing, suddenly deciding to go to a parish dance? If Grace had been a normal young woman, rather than one caught up in three thousand years’ worth of hatred and ambition, then, yes, Jack could imagine she might have decided to go to a dance at the local parish hall.

  But she was too withdrawn, too battered by all that had trapped her, and Jack could not for the life of him see her chatting gaily with numerous “young things” unable, on any level, to truly communicate with her. All in all, Jack thought a local dance would be hell on earth for such a one as Grace.

  And…didn’t want to be frightened, she didn’t want to let them scare her? What the hell…?

  “Stacey? What has happened?”

  “I am surprised you don’t know, sir.”

  “What the fuck has happened, Stacey?”

  “Grace was attacked, about two weeks ago. Down in Rotherhithe, out trying to aid you. She came home, her clothes in tatters, her body bruised. She would hardly speak of it, and begged me to say nothing, but—”

  “What happened to her?”

  “So far as I can work out, two men attacked her, held a knife to her, tried to rape her. Threatened her with appalling violence.” Stacey paused, watching the expression on Jack’s face very carefully. “I wouldn’t be surprised if those two were the Penitent Ripper.”

  Jack went so cold he was amazed his heart didn’t stop beating. The imps. It must have been the imps. Jesus Christ, what the hell was Catling playing at?

  “I’m sure you’ll see her safely home tonight, Major,” Stacey said.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about it earlier?”

  “I’m telling you now, Major.”

  Jack swore, then turned for the door.

  The parish hall of St Margaret’s Westminster had been carefully blacked out so that no light shone from window or door, but Jack could clearly hear the sound of music and laughter coming from within.

  In the first months of the war night-time entertainments—the cinema, theatres, dances, restaurants—had largely shut down, either by government order or because people were too frightened to go out. As the war dragged on and Hitler neither invaded nor bombarded London with gas or fire, people had slowly relaxed, and the dance halls, cinemas, theatres and restaurants re-opened.

  As he parked his Austin, Jack wondered how long this false sense of security would last. Neither Hitler nor Catling would leave the city entirely alone.

  Not forever.

  Inside, the parish hall was alive with music, light, jostling bodies, laughter and chatter. Jack paused just inside the door, tucking his military cap under one arm, surveying the scene.

  Where was Grace?

  He peered through the throng, trying to see her, but the dance floor was so jammed with tightly packed, moving bodies that Jack thought he’d have a better chance of spotting a distant star on a stormy night than of picking out Grace.

  “Major?” said a voice at his elbow, and Jack turned.

  A clergyman stood there, smiling at him. “Welcome to St Margaret’s, Major. We weren’t expecting our friends from across the Atlantic just yet, however. You came here because…?”

  Despite the man’s smile, Jack could see his suspicion.

  “I’m looking for Grace Orr,” he said.

  The clergyman’s face cleared. “Oh, Grace! Yes, of course she is here. I’m glad a friend…you are a friend, yes?”

  Jack managed a smile. “Yes. I’ve been a friend of the family for more years than any of us care to remember.”

  “Of course. Well, I’m glad a friend of Grace’s has managed to arrive. Maybe you can drag her out of the kitchen. Several of the young men here would love to ask her for a dance.”

  “The kitchen?”

  The clergyman waved in the direction of a door at the back, and Jack nodded his thanks and started to press his way through the crowd.

  Grace was standing at the sink in the little kitchen, her arms in suds up to their elbows. As soon as she realised someone had entered—alerted not by the sound of the door, but by the sudden rush of noise as the door opened—she turned about, grabbing at a tea towel as she did so.

  She froze as soon as she saw who it was, the tea towel draped over her arms.

  Jack closed the door, slightly stunned by the depth of relief that flooded through him as he saw she was safe. He swept his eyes around the kitchen, halfexpecting the cursed imps to leap out of some shadow, but they were alone.

  He looked back to Grace, taking a moment to study her.

  She was wearing a pure white dress of some slinky material, sleeveless, and cut in close to waist and hip. A long-sleeved bolero jacket of the same material was draped over the back of a nearby chair, and Jack saw Grace’s eyes flicker towards it.

  He realised that the tea towel was not so much an aid to drying her arms, but a means of hiding her scars until she could slip on the jacket.

  Grace gave an uncertain smile, glancing once more at the jacket.

  “You do not need to hide your wrists from me,” Jack said. He walked over to her, and tugged the tea towel out of her hands. “Want a hand with the dishes?” He thought she would flee if he suddenly demanded details of the attack.

  She let the towel go, but with obvious reluctance. Jack had blocked her access to both jacket and door, and she leaned back against the sink, her face flushed.

  “What are you doing here, Jack? My mother is out with—”

  “I wasn’t looking for your mother. But what are you doing in here?” He smiled, infusing a jesting tone into his voice, trying to relax her. “Isn’t all the fun happening out there?” He tipped his head to the door leading back into the hall.

  Another uncertain, unhappy smile. “I don’t know why I came. It’s stupid, really. I shouldn’t be here.”

  No, thought Jack, you shouldn’t be here, at all. He had a sudden vision of Ambersbury Banks bathed in moonlight, and Grace standing there, still and waiting, her eyes wild with power.

  “Grace, why did you come? At night. It’s too dangerous. You could have been attacked again—” Shit! Jack broke off, wishing he could snatch back the words.

  “Stacey told you,” she said, very low.

  “Yes, Stacey told me. Grace…Grace…”

  “I am all right,
Jack. They didn’t hurt me.”

  Didn’t hurt her? Torn clothing? Bruises? Knife? Threats of appalling violence. “Oh, gods…what happened, Grace? Please, tell me.”

  She drew in a breath, and he heard it shudder in her throat. “I was in Rotherhithe. It was late, I shouldn’t have stayed out so long. Two men grabbed me, threatened me with a knife. I got away. That’s all.”

  “No, there’s more. Grace, those were the imps—you know that? Yes? By all the gods, they have been the ones doing the murders. Grace, what did they want?”

  “Just to scare me, Jack. That’s all. It was just Catling, finding a new way to torment me. I am not frightened.”

  And that was why she had come to this parish dance, Jack realised. To prove to herself and to the imps that she was not frightened. He was appalled at what could have happened.

  Jack reached out his hands, resting them on her shoulders. “Grace, I can’t have you going out and—”

  “Jack, please don’t ask me to stop helping you,” she said. Her voice was steadier, and her eyes met his without flinching. “If I stop helping you then Catling will have won.”

  He didn’t know what to say.

  “I’ll be careful, Jack. Really.”

  He gave a soft, disbelieving laugh. “I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to you, Grace.”

  “I know you have my mother to help you now, but—”

  “Your mother can’t do what you can. Noah cannot discover any more of the shadow. She can only sense what you and I are already aware of. Besides, Noah is not my life, whatever you think.”

  She dropped her eyes, and Jack could see she didn’t believe him.

  He tightened his hands fractionally on her shoulders. “Dance with me,” he said.

  “No, I—”

  “Dance with me, Grace. It is a lovely night, and the music is good, and I have no idea why on earth both of us are spending the night tucked away in this wretched kitchen. After all, you wanted to come here to defy Catling, yes?” Quite suddenly Jack found the idea of dancing with Grace very appealing.

  “Jack—”

  “Dance with me, Grace.”

  Still she hesitated.

  “Don’t be frightened,” he said, “not of the dancing floor.” And with that he led her towards the door.

  Once they reached the dance floor, Jack put his arm about Grace’s waist, and held her firmly against him. The music, frenetic when he’d first arrived, had calmed and slowed into a soothing ballad, and Jack led Grace into an unhurried, rhythmical ballroom dance. Grace held herself stiffly, uncertainly, and Jack had to coax her through every step.

  The other dancers gave them their own space, not through any deliberate consideration, but because Jack and Grace’s arrival on the dance floor had caused a not-inconsiderable stir and most people wanted to be able to watch them. People had been gossiping ever since the handsome American major had arrived only to vanish into the kitchen to speak with the enigmatic Grace Orr, and now the talk, while muted, only increased in intensity. Jack was well aware that every eye in the hall was on them, and, from Grace’s rigid stance, knew that she was, as well.

  “Dance with me,” Jack whispered, and smiled as Grace’s body finally leaned against his, and her movements loosened so that their dancing became much freer.

  She was a good dancer, and Jack remembered that Noah had said that Weyland sometimes took Grace dancing in the Savoy’s ballroom.

  But that was not the reason Grace danced well, was it? She was a trained Mistress of the Labyrinth, and she would have the rhythms and harmonies of the stars themselves sliding through her veins.

  Jack relaxed, enjoying the feel of Grace in his arms. He thought again of what those imps could have done to Grace, and his arm tightened fractionally about her.

  Grace responded by leaning most of her weight against him, and tucking her head into his shoulder, and he smiled against the loose, springy curls of her hair. This form of dancing, coupled together so closely, was unusual to him. For most of his long, long life, dancers had been segregated by sex and by distance. People danced in groups or lines or circles, not coupled together so intimately.

  Jack wondered why it had taken so long for someone to think of this innovation.

  Without thinking, the hand he had loosely clasped about Grace’s back began to move. At first randomly, gentle circles in the small of her back, the silken fabric of her dress no barrier to the warmth and softness of her skin, but then in more deliberate patterns.

  Instantly Grace took a sharp intake of breath.

  Before she could speak, Jack said, “Grace, you are a trained Mistress of the Labyrinth. But how good are you?”

  Then his hand moved again, but far, far more deliberately than previously, and this time Jack underpinned its movements with his power as a Kingman. Using both his hand and his power, as well as the movement of their dancing, Jack began to trace out harmonies, over and through her body.

  Both Kingmen and Mistresses of the Labyrinth used dance to control the harmonies that made up all life—the harmonies found in the movement of the stars and the tides, the turning of the seasons, the running of water over land. Controlling these, even a fraction of them, was what gave Kingmen and Mistresses their power. In her training as a Mistress of the Labyrinth, Grace would have learned to touch and manipulate these harmonies, but she had never danced with a Kingman previously. She had never combined her powers with those of a Kingman.

  Jack had never once danced this way with Noah, and it had been three and a half thousand years since he had danced with Genvissa. It had been a long, long time since he had allowed his powers as a Kingman free rein.

  He did so now, and he wondered how Grace would react—or even if she was capable of reacting. Would this terrify her? Would she run from him? Would she not be able to counter his power and—

  Sweetly, gently, infinitesimally quietly, Grace entwined her power with his, embracing and complementing his as if they had danced together a thousand times previously.

  Jack trembled. He had expected anything but this. When he’d danced with Genvissa their powers had been complementary, yes, and they had been more than good together, but this? No. This was…extraordinary.

  “What a surprise you are, Grace,” Jack whispered. Then, his hold on her tightening, he said, “Trust me. Trust me.”

  The parish hall about them vanished.

  They danced across Ambersbury Banks in the thin moonlight. Jack wasn’t sure why he had brought Grace here, only that as soon as she had entwined her power with his he’d felt a need so powerful he’d been unable to resist it. They danced a little more wildly now, but still loosely entwined, and more wrapped in labyrinthine power than ever. Away from the parish hall, away from the stares, both could afford to expend a bit more power.

  Music surrounded them, but the sound of the band had vanished, replaced by the music of the trees and the wind and the stars racing overhead.

  Jack’s sense of unreality grew as he realised the full significance of what he felt from Grace. During his training as a Kingman he’d heard stories (rumours, really) that for every Kingman there was one perfect match somewhere, a Mistress of the Labyrinth who would so seamlessly complement his power (and he, hers) that whatever Game they danced together would be flawless and unassailable. It was a rumour only, a legend, or so Jack had thought until the past few minutes.

  What he felt from Grace he’d never felt from Genvissa, and his gut instinct told him he’d never feel it from Noah, either.

  “Dear gods, Grace,” he said, and she tilted her head back to see his face.

  She looked puzzled at his intensity, and Jack realised she could not feel what he did. Disappointment overwhelmed him, and she saw it, for her eyes clouded over, and she tensed in his arms.

  “Grace, don’t. It’s all right. Please, dance with me here, dance with me. Don’t go.”

  She relaxed against him once more, and Jack closed his eyes and rested his cheek against her
curls, trying to come to terms with what was happening. Vivid images and emotions and desires flooded his mind.

  It was, in the end, the desire that undid him. The pairing and dancing of a Kingman and Mistress was a marriage not only of power, but also of desire— the desire almost always begotten of the mating of their power.

  He gave a short laugh, discomfited by his arousal, and, breaking off the dance and the flow of his power, stepped back from Grace.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  The animation on her face drained away. “Jack? Did I do something wrong?”

  He stared at her, still unable to believe that she had felt nothing. “No,” he said eventually. “You have done nothing wrong, Grace.”

  She was very still, her eyes dark in this faint light, looking steadily at him. “Jack…”

  “You’re a surprise, Grace. You know that?”

  A smile trembled about her mouth, then died. “Is that good, Jack? I don’t know what you thought…if I…I know that I could not be as good as my mother, or Stella, but—”

  “You’re very good, Grace,” he said quietly, finally realising what she wanted to know. “You’re very powerful, and you have no reason, none, to think that you can only ever exist in your mother’s shadow, let alone Stella’s.” He gave a short laugh. “You stepped out of everyone’s shadow tonight, Grace. Believe it.”

  She smiled, relieved, and the smile was so lovely, and so transformed her, that Jack had to literally clench his fists in order to suppress the urge to kiss her. Gods, man, this is one road you don’t need to travel!

  “Stella said I was good, but I didn’t know whether or not to believe it,” she said.

  Jack was incredulous that she had, most apparently, felt none of the powerful emotions he had. Does she have no idea of her power, labyrinthine or sexual? Did I, until but a few minutes ago?

  “Let me take you home, Grace.”

  Apparently they had not been missed amid the dancers at St Margaret’s parish hall, for their “reappearance” there caused no great stir. Jack thought that somehow (amid his virtually total concentration on Grace) he’d kept a shadow of them dancing within the hall, and that their shadows had merely solidified back into a reality that had not disturbed anyone’s perception of them.